Almost-Orphans, Crazy Father Figures, and Medieval Castles

I just finished reading A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper, a historical novel about young royal cousins on an fictional island nation on the cusp of World War II.  I was immediately struck by its similarities to I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, a YA classic that I had missed and recently read on my quest to fill in some of my children's literature gaps.  I wasn't the only one - one of the blurbs in my paperback edition made the connection too.  The similarities are so numerous and specific that I made a list:

• Orphans or de facto orphans who have to largely fend for themselves, check.
• Said almost-orphans live in genteel poverty, check.
  
• Mentally ill father or father figure, check.
• Isolated medieval castle, check.
• 1930s setting, check.
• Teenage narrator who narrates by writing in her journal, check.
• "Plain" narrator and more beautiful older sister/cousin, check.  
• Love interest named Simon, check.

There are, of course, some differences, the major one being that A Brief History of Montmaray addresses politics and the impending world war whereas those go unmentioned in I Capture the Castle.  A Brief History of Montmaray is also the first book in a trilogy. 

Can you think of any other two books with so many similarities?  I wrote about others that came to mind here, particularly Roald Dahl's classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Wendy Mass's recent book, The Candymakers and here.

Introducing...

When you read a book do you read the whole book?  Do you read introductions, forewords, dedications, afterwords, and acknowledgements?  I do.  Part of it the reason is that I'm just a yenta at heart: did the author thank her parents/spouse/children/pet?  Does she have a spouse/children/pet?  Did she thank other authors?  Just as people feel they "know" celebrities and their children, these details make me feel like I know the author. 

But more importantly, when an author you like writes the introduction to a book by another author, it's like getting a recommendation from a trusted friend.  When the author of a book you are about to read pays homage to other books you enjoy, you know you are in good hands. 

And so as I wrote here, I specifically sought out the edition of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn with the introduction by Anna Quindlen, one of my favorite authors (if you are a mother, you must read her Life in the 30s columns, collected in the volume Living Out Loud).  And now, I have to seek out the edition of A Wrinkle in Time that she introduced as well, as I learned in a fascinating article about trends in girls' reading over time by New York Times children's book reviewer Pamela Paul.

In an earlier post I discussed original and derivative works and a reader commented that Laurel Snyder's books are a clear homage to Edgar Eager's which in turn pay their respects to E. Nesbit's.  Sure enough, I picked up Five Children and It to reread and the introduction was by none other than Laurel Snyder.  Moreover, in Edward Eager's Half Magic, he explicitly pays tribute to E. Nesbit's work.  Wendy Mass thanks Judy Blume for her help in several of her books.  And I wonder if Rebecca Stead acknowledged her debt to Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time in the acknowledgements or elsewhere in When You Reach Me  (I read it but don't have a copy to check right now).  And, on the adult side, in 11/22/63, Stephen King thanks Jack Finney for the quintessential time travel novel and one of my favorites, Time and Again.  These acknowledgements provide insight, recommendations and books to look for (if I haven't read them).  They also reaffirm my own good taste and lend credence to my fantasy that all my favorite authors hang out together.

Finally, these parts of the book are directed to the reader in a way that the narrative is not.  In this vein, I particularly love Grace Lin's dedication in The Year of the Rat (I think): "If you are reading this book, then it is dedicated to YOU" for its overt acknowledgement of the reader. 

Do you read introductions, forewords, afterwords, acknowledgements and dedications?  Do you care who wrote these items if not the author herself?  Do you seek out a particular edition of a book just to read the introduction?

Originals and Derivatives, Take Two

Just two more quick examples of original works and later derivative works; that is, books (or movies) that share a premise, or a style of illustration, or a plot.

Another Wendy Mass novel: 11 Birthdays.  Two kids relive their shared 11th birthday over and over and over again... until they can figure out how to break the spell.  Sounds a little like a movie that was popular a while ago, doesn't it? 

My husband came home from the library and told me that our 3-year-old had picked out her own book and that it was about fall and was by the same author as Leaves by David Ezra Stein.  Wondering why the author had done another book on the same topic, I went to see my daughter's selection.  It turned out to be The Bear's Winter House by John Yeoman, illustrated by Quentin Blake and first published in 1969.  But my husband was right - the subject matter (although not the plot) and, even more so, the illustrations, are eerily similar to Stein's.  The bears even have the same sweet, curious, gentle look about them.  Did Stein know of this book when he wrote his?

Is the Original Always Better?

Lately I've read a few books which are clearly derivative of (or perhaps, more positively, homages to), classics which came before them.  They are not "remakes" in the sense of movies with new casts and updated language and settings.  Rather, they use the original work as a starting point for a whole new work.

Wendy Mass's middle-grade novel, The Candymakers, has a premise similar to that of Roald Dahl's classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (recently published in a new pop-up edition by famed illustrator Quentin Blake), but with several twists.  It's been called a cross between Charlie and The Westing Game.  In The Candymakers, the four protagonists are contestants in a candymaking competition and the perspective of the book shifts among them (although none of them narrate it directly).  As the point of view alternates, the reader learns new information.  This mystery-adventure is a great book and I'm eager to read others by Ms. Mass. I think, if I'm being honest, I might even like it more than Charlie. 

When I saw the title, A Sock is A Pocket for Your Toes by Elizabeth Garton Scanlon, I immediately thought of Mary Ann Hoberman's, A House is a House for Me, discussed here, and written more than twenty-five years earlier.  Sure enough, it too is a creative look at containers for items, here described as pockets rather than houses.  Here, I definitely prefer the original on the merits alone.  This one has a rhyme scheme I don't particularly like, and the ending is too sickly-sweet for me.

Finally, King Jack and the Dragon by Peter Bentley and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, harkens back to  Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, particularly in the pictures.  I actually love this sweeter, gentler take on a child's imaginative journey, although it lacks many of the psychological elements (acting out, parent-child relationships) that make Where the Wild Things Are truly special and unique. 

It takes a lot of guts to challenge a classic head-on like this.  After all,  Ms. Mass could have made the contest about something else - inventions in general, even - but she chose candy (with its echoes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) for a reason.   But I'm not sure what the reason was. 

It's worth noting, too, that two of these three books are all by established authors/illustrators; the exception is Elizabeth Garton Scanlon, for whom A Sock is A Pocket for Your Toes was her first book.  Would publishers have dismissed the others as derivative if they'd been submitted by unknowns?

Of course, lots of books share themes or even plots. What distinguishes them is language, character development, pacing, and a million other indefinable things.  Intellectual property law distinguishes between works which rely too heavily on the original and those which use it as a jumping off point and are derivative (in a legal, not pejorative sense).  So why do I have a voice in my head saying "the original is always better"?  That's how I feel about movies made from books, too. But is that bias fair? And what if I'd read the second book first? How would I feel then? 

What do you think?  Is the original always better?  What other pairs of original/derivative books can you think of?